Monday, December 05, 2005

More Baking

I finished the Scandinavian Almond Bars and got them into the freezer before I could eat them up. This is a recipe in Better Homes and Gardens Cookies for Christmas. They're time-consuming, but my son Brandon always asks for them, and that's saying a lot because of how picky an eater he is. These make a nice addition to the cookie tray. They are sweet and crispy and have a nice almond flavor.

I'm thinking about playing around with the recipe and making round cookies with chopped pecans and maple flavorings. I've been itching to do some sort of a maple cookie with either a maple frosting or maple glaze. I'm running out of time to do all the cookies I wanted to do, so I'll need to limit my selection.

Scandinavian Almond Bars

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
8 ounces unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract
nonfat milk
1 cup sliced almonds, coarsely chopped
Icing:
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 tablespoons nonfat milk

1. Stir together flour, baking powder and salt. In a large bowl, cream butter until softened. Cream sugar into the butter and beat until fluffy. Add egg and extract and beat well. Add flour mixture and beat until well mixed.

2. Divide dough into eighths (about 70 mg. each). Form each into a flattened rectangle, two per cookie sheet, measuring about 3 inches by 12 inches. Refrigerate for about 15 minutes to allow gluten to rest.

3. Brush flattened rolls with milk and sprinkle with almonds, pressing almonds slightly into dough.

4. Bake at 325° for 12 to 14 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Rotate baking sheets halfway through cooking.

4. While cookies are still warm, cut them crosswise at a diagonal into 1-inch strips.

5. Cool. Drizzle with icing.

6. ALMOND ICING: Stir together ingredients with enough milk to make of drizzling consistency.

Makes about 80 cookies.

Tips: Lightly dampen fingertips if they stick to the dough. Don't worry about small ridges; the dough will puff slightly as it bakes and the marks will disappear.

Cut the baked cookie into strips and remove the strips to a rack to cool as soon as possible. The cookies will harden as they cool. They will crumble when cut and will stick to the baking sheet if you wait too long. If this happens, place in the oven for a couple of minutes to soften.

Use a plastic bag with the tip cut off to pipe the icing onto the cookies - using a spoon to drizzle is too difficult to control the amount of icing that drops onto the cookies, especially when starting a new spoonful.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Christmas Baking




Well, this will certainly be an adventure! It will be fun posting recipes, uploading photos, and learning more about blogging. I'm hoping to learn as I go. Linz (one of our daughters) is probably an old pro at this and can give me a hand. She is one of the administrators at a Clay Aiken message board ("Our Man Clay").

This weekend was spent getting started on my Christmas baking. Of course, it's a family tradition that the first batch be peanut butter cookies. This recipe has evolved over the years. The original recipe came from my mother-in-law, although I've made peanut butter cookies since I was a girl. I grew up with Skippy Peanut Butter. When I met my husband Bob, he introduced me to the WONDERFUL taste of JIF. Now THAT's what peanut butter should taste like - PEANUTS! I was served toast with Skippy a few years later, and it didn't taste like peanut butter at all.

Well, I digress, which is a common affliction for me. My mother-in-law gave me her recipe for the cookies over 20 years ago. So, for all this time, I've been making the same recipe, using a combination of butter and shortening and have been frustrated because the cookies were always too crisp. I experimented recently and tried using all margarine and I was finally able to achieve the perfect, soft cookie that had eluded me for all this time. A funny story - my husband knows my peanut butter cookies are crispy. The first time I used the margarine, Linz and I were baking together. So now, the new version is thought of as Linz's cookies. She and I share a secret smile when Bob asks Linz to make "her" peanut butter cookies.

Soft Peanut Butter Cookies

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup margarine
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar, packed, about 7 1/8 ounces by weight (I usually simplify it by using 8 ounces for every cup, which is a little more sugar than called for)
2 eggs
1 cup peanut butter (about 7-8 ounces by weight)
2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sift flour with soda and salt and set aside.

Cream margarine, then cream with white sugar. Beat on medium speed of mixer. Add brown sugar. Add eggs, peanut butter and vanilla and beat until fluffy.

Refrigerate the dough for about 15 minutes to allow the gluten to rest.

Use a small ice cream scoop to make uniform-sized mounds of dough. Roll into 1-inch balls between palms until smooth and uniform in shape. Press down with a fork into criss-crosses on top to make cookie 1/4-inch high. Dip the fork in flour if it sticks to the dough.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, reversing cookie sheets halfway through. Let cool slightly then remove to a rack to cool completely.

Makes about 5 dozen.